


The Rightful Human

by CallmeIsmail



Series: Of djinni and humans [2]
Category: Ala ad-Din | Aladdin (Fairy Tale), Aladdin (2019)
Genre: Ambigous genitalia, Amnesia, Children, Djinni & Genies, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Magic, Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Possible Male Lactation, References to Mpreg, Sense of guilt, references to rape and abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-08-20 23:02:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20235814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallmeIsmail/pseuds/CallmeIsmail
Summary: Follow up to the story "What a man deprived of his soul and a jinn look like". It has been four years since Jafar's rescue and the fromer Grand Vizier still hasn't regained his memory but the general peaceful environment Aladdin was able to create for thim seems to shatter at Jafar's request of freedom for his daughter, Kaija. It is a story that entangles guilt, amnesia, sense of loss and the struggle of our protagonist - Aladdin - to do the right thing, therefore the "Rightful Human".





	1. Domestic Life

**Author's Note:**

> I have tried to put my university knowledge of islamic culture at work and hopefully I did a decent job with it. If not, please let me know, I will promptly correct it. I hope I did not offend anyone. Please be patient with my english and narrative, I'm new to the art of writing short stories. That said I really hope you enjoy it! See the end of the chapter for translations.

One tends to forget the amount of relief a secluded space can provide from the heat of the midsummer’s sun - especially at its peak, during the premiere and warmest hours of the afternoon. Closed gates and concealed windows help to create settings of total darkness, as well as rooms filled with much needed chill and cool air. So, the sigh Aladdin emits when passing through the only door of Agrabah’s oldest minaret – once neglected, now fashioned into a very unlikely abode – is not due to feelings of nervousness but rather to the delightful sensation of freshness that finds place inside the isolated tower.  
Well, at least that’s what Aladdin wishes to believe.  
It has been several months since the last time he took the effort to reach the farthest point of the city-state, the most shut off area of his wife’s kingdom.  
As a matter of fact, the minaret stood a couple of qirat outside the city walls - the ones which faced the Al-Barid Desert (Al-Barid literally meaning “outside the gates”) – where the founder of Agrabah, Isaac the Wise, consacrated the birth of his kingdom by tracing the perimeter that his city-state should have followed with his spear, just like Costantine did with Rūmiyya al-Kubrā, more than eight centuries ago. In the end, Isaac’s successors believed the site he marked not to be an appropriate one and preferred to relocate the kingdom just about the seashore, honoring Isaac’s choice by building above its location a mosque which, in the mind of his heir, al-Amir-al-Harun, would protect the city from the infedels of the desert.  
It was an old tale, that of Isaac. Recorded by Agrabah’s annals as Aladdin discovered once he had learned reading but that he had preaviously heard about when he was still pick-pocketing through the streets of that very same kingdom he could now call his own, thanks to the fact that he was prince consort of the Sultana of Agrabah, father of her heir, the five year old al-Amir Yasin, the distance of the lasting minaret – the only piece of the mosque body that survived endless retaliations from the neighbouring country of Nahr – was one of the reasons Aladdin hadn’t visited the structure in a while. And its inhabitants.  
Wichever the reasons may be, due to his absence, the former street thief wasn’t so sure his visit would be a welcomed one.  
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness which filled the longilinear body of the tower completely – deprived of any kind of opening if not for the living quarters that found room in its peak – Aladdin was able to gradually make out the shape of the stairs and, after a few tentative steps, started to climb them. Abu, his long time friend and sidekick, nimbly climbed the steps alongside him, as well as the prince’s shoulders, where he perked himself, staring with dislike at the toy Aladdin was carrying in his hands.  
It was a small present; just a token with which he hoped to warm up the spirits: a little automaton, in the shape of a monkey, made out of carved wood and copper strings, painted in gold and silver, that Aladdin purchased at the down-town bazaar, where he had found a couple of merchants from abroad. The man who sold him the toy – a very old one, as it was initially covered in rust – came from the land of Tibet that, as Aladdin learned from the middle aged vendor of the piercing golden eyes, was located amongst the territorial possessions of China.  
“I bought this automaton from none other than the maidens of the Royal Princess of China”, the man said, highly exaggerating the qualities of the object he was trying to sell, “She is now an adult. A beautiful flower for her suitors to pick and, as a proof of maturity, she decided to gift her precious of childhood to all the infants of the Great Country of China.”  
Aladdin had repressed the instinct to point out the strangeness of a princess that gifts her toys as a gesture of benevolence that yet required a payment for it, as if she even needed it. The man had forgotten the premise of his fabrication even before he had completed it.  
Anyway, he loved the little toy. He had always wanted something like that when he was a child and even though Abu had wasted no time expressing his dislike of the lifeless monkey-like automaton with wails and squeaks and even though his son wouldn’t have appreciated it since much more beautiful toys were awaiting the interest of al-Amir, the prince consort decided to buy it nonetheless. He would have found a use for it that wasn’t putting it on a shelf in his quarters of the palace, sooner or later. He had thought about playing with it alongside Lian and Omar, the children of Dalia and Ismail, but both of them now considered themselves to be “grown-ups” (to think that Lian had just turned thirteen while Omar was no older than nine!) and did not harbour any interest towards toys anymore or, at least, they liked to pretend they didn’t. Jasmine, his wife, his Sultana, had expressed mixed feelings towards it. To use her own words: she did like it, but she couldn’t understand what Aladdin planned to do with it.  
Maybe cleaning it, repairing it a little bit.  
Seeing what the little toy could perform.  
“Then you should be careful around Rajah” Jasmine said with a wide smile and a low chuckle, “She’s been observing it for a while. I wouldn’t want the automaton to become a toothpick for tigers.”  
At that Aladdin had frowned but, thankfully, he was able to find a use for it in the end. He just hoped little Kaija would appreciate the object and the effort Aladdin put into making it work again. It turned out that all the robot monkey could do was walking a couple of inches forward and backwards, according to the inclination of its bust.  
His train of thoughts was interrupted by the quick realization that the steps had terminated and that there was nothing stranger than the feeling of awakening from daydreaming that the body experiences when its foot lands on a flat surface as if it was the continuation of a staircase. He almost fell, only for Hakim to catch him in time, before he could embarass himself with his clumsiness.  
“Have you hurt yourself, your Majesty?” the ex palace guard that now presided over the minaret’s security as head of the sentry asked.  
Aladdin adjusted himself before replying.  
“No, Hakim, thank you, I am fine.” Aladdin flatly responded. “And please, do not call me ‘Your Majesty’. It just feels too weird.”  
To be completely truthful, it didn’t matter how many years had passed. The grey hair in Hakim’s beard and mane, the carved wrinkles under his tired black eyes, and the fierce growth of Aladdin’s own stubble could not make him forget that the guard had once mindlessly participated in Jafar’s scheme to murder him.  
How ironic that Aladdin had come to Isaac’s Minaret (as it was called in Agrabah) to meet none other than Jafar, then.  
To his wife and father-in-law that had sounded insane.  
“How can you be so forgiving with Jafar?” Jasmine had inquired while placing her hands over their child’s ears, as they had mutually decided that Yasin didn’t need to know about the Djinn, “And so cold with Hakim?”  
“He did only what Jafar had ordered him.” His father-in-law added, who was now plagued with the use of a walking stick, as the fall that took place around the edge of the bath a couple of years prior had permanently semi-paralyzed his leg.  
“And don’t forget that at the time the ingrate was the Grand Vizier. He couldn’t have possibly disobeyed his orders.”  
Whatever. They could have probably presented him three hundred more reasons for which his feelings didn’t make any sense but at the same time it was exactly the ease of Hakim’s actions that spurred Aladdin’s distrust. It’s not like he believed Hakim to be stupid but he found difficult trusting a man that would blindly obey without expressing any kind of doubt. Sure, he had proven himself to be able to think with his own mind once Jafar had become Sultan, after his fisrt wish, but Aladdin couldn’t shake off the feeling that the only reason he did was because he had been familiar with both Jasmine and the Sultan. In Aladdin’s mind, he wouldn’t have done it for anyone else. It was not about reason, it was about loyalty.  
“How are things around here?”, Aladdin asked, trying to shake off the feeling of uneasiness the pair found themselves in.  
Hakim kept his expressionless glare and, after straightening his posture, he replied.  
“It’s been quiet since the last time you came here, Milo—Aladdin. Jafar is always at his frame while Kaija… well, the little girl can be troublesome. But I assume her restless behaviour is only due to her young age.”  
“She is such a small child…”, Aladdin stated while looking at the toy he had purchased. It had been four years since Jafar’s labour of the child he had been forced with after his previous master’s cruel attitude had grown into a cute little girl. She had the black curls of her father (mother? What was Jafar to her?), as well as his big dark brown orbs, a strong, curious, bashful character and a snake-like birthmark over her left eye. Truly, Kaija was the epitome of liveliness.  
“She is young, indeed.” Hakim replied, clearly uncomfortable with the sole idea of chit-chatting.  
The silence that pervaded the atmosphere after that last exchange of sentences was as palpable as the uneasiness of the situation.  
“They’ve been asking for you.”  
At that, Aladdin raised his look, previously focused over discerning the lines that divided the wooden parts of the automaton from its copper mechanisms, and acknowledged with a soft smile Hakim’s attempt at reassuring him.  
“Then I better go, shouldn’t I? I’ve made them wait for far too long.”  
Abu squeaked in encouragement and drew closer to Aladdin’s face to caress it.  
Both Aladdin and Hakim smiled. Then, the guard proceeded to unlock the doors of the Djinn’s alcove that was also his prison, littered with magical amulets, formulas and painted in special liquid mixtures prepared by alchemists to tame genies, just to reveal a small horizontal corridor that led to the real threshold of Jafar and Kaija’s apartments. This time, it was Aladdin’s turn to take a silver key out of his pocket and – after making sure that Hakim had safely returned to his post to relock the initial magical gates, the prince consort of Agrabah, once the plague of its streets, opened the door.

Contrary to the dimness the duo previously experienced along the staircase, the apartments that found place atop Isaac’s minaret were bathed in light. As soon as someone opened the door they would find themselves in the lit, warm rooms of the harem, quite wide in range, and Aladdin knew every single spot of it. At first, the door he unlocked opened over a scene of colourful carpets and cushions, a hooka standing just nearby, clearly disused as Jafar himself did not appear to enjoy the act of smoking. To the right, a vast opening in the wall gave access to the bedroom where Jafar and Kaija’s times of rest took place; it was the only room that was prevented from the invasive presence of sunlight thanks to the linen blue curtains, that also separated it from the space of the living room. Next to it, to the far right of the apartments, a threshold similar to that of the bedroom allowed the view to lie itself on the bathing pool, defined in its borders by the framed ochre and green tiles.  
To the other side – to the left – was a corridor that led to the space where Aladdin usually found the nightingale of this magnificently decorated birdcage; after getting through a narrow staircase, passing by a small space where the kitchen oven and cooking utensils could be found, Aladdin reached the highest part of the building, its top: the wide room was characterized by the blessing of the biggest window the minaret possessed (not that there were not other windows; in fact, the whole apartments were adorned with highly refined glass windows), which occupied a massive amount of surface, almost as if the circular walls had suffered from an attack, the resulting wound becoming a magnificent architectural element to glorify their pain.  
In the middle of the circular space there laid a frame, which borders held the strings of an everlasting unfinished tapestry that progressed in length to the rythm of its weaver’s surfacing blurred memory: on a background that had shades as blue as the desert evening, textures shaped in the form of a white full moon , a red, giant, squawking phoenix and a caravan in the desert that stood just underneath it, where a veiled woman whose face was a blank spot hailed from holding a glowing golden sphere, were limited inside a pristine cerulean cloud, made of wool.  
Next to the uncompleted masterpiece stood its creator, who sat on a wooden chair, draped in a tunic which recalled to Aladdin’s mind the color of ivory, the slightest ornaments placed at its borders and down the chest made out of red cotton. A loosened turban, that matched the color of the tunic, was doing a poor job of keeping Jafar’s long curls at bay.  
It had been almost five years since that fateful night in which the two thieves had met each other again and yet, even though Aladdin himself had suffered – as all men did- from the cruelties of getting older (his face was always handsome but his lines had become sharper, rougher as the stubble over his face had grown consistently and unevenly, unlike his hair that he kept firmly short, and the tiredness in his eyes had become persistent), reaching the age of 34, Jafar seemed to be untouched by this petty problems.  
It was probably because he was a djinn, but his face and body held the same vigorous youth as they did thirteen years ago , when they had first met. Only his hair and beard had grown, his curls and eyes as black as ever.  
As gorgeus as ever.  
The thought sent blood rushing over his cheeks, embarassment clouding over the thoughts of what should be his next step to get the Djinn’s attentions and it was only thanks to Abu’s screaming that Aladdin was able to wake Jafar from the trance that working on his canvas elicited in him.  
The ex Vizier turned to face the source of the sound and the slightly annoyed look that had settled upon his features changed into one of bewilderment.  
“Aladdin.” Jafar said in an uneven voice, half baffled and half excited.  
“I… I didn’t expect you today. Everything is a mess. I am a mess.” Jafar stated, panic and embarassment filling his voice as he got up from the stool and combed through his hair, trying to straighten his white turban and discarding the nearby table on which different books and pieces of sketched parchment laid.  
In his rush, Jafar even forgot that on the floor next to his feet there was a bottle of ink – which he had probably used to sketch and to take notes with over the scrolls – and kicked it, sending all its contents over the carpet, staining it.  
The mortified expression over his face was something that Aladdin had its difficulties to deal with and, as Jafar kneeled over the floor with a cloth that he had wet with a bottle of nearby rosed water, started to speak:  
“Jafar, you don’t have to fret over something as little as this. It was my fault. And Abu’s fault. I startled you with my sudden arrival and you just tripped. That’s it.”  
With that, Aladdin drew closer to the Djinn, left the toy that he had held on to for all that time over the top of the small table, and took the cloth from Jafar’s hands, taking on himself the task to clean the mess he and his small monkey friend had caused. He spared a quick glance over Jafar’s wrists: the bracelets that signified bondage to the magic of the lamp still adorned with their opulence Jafar’s bare arms.  
The whole situation had something akin to incredible: not only Jafar did not regain his memory after four years – glimpses of it coming to him like the pieces of a puzzle he was trying to solve – he also had not attempted once at using his magical powers.  
Truth to be told, it wasn’t that Jafar willingly decided to renounce to his powers: the whole point stood in the fact that first, he didn’t even know (or appeared to know) that he was a genie; second, the amulets and formulas, the sealed doors and enchanted glass windows prevented him from ever discovering it.  
“It is better this way.” Ismail had said to him, with the placid consent of Ahmad, the physician that had nurtured Jafar back to health the first couple of years of Kaija’s life.  
“Considering the state of his mind and that of his soul, it might be better for him to never know; I’m talking about his djinn nature and his past alike, Aladdin. Do not torment him and Agrabah because of your delusional sense of right and wrong.”  
The words had hurt Aladdin deeply; what was he supposed to do, keep lying to him? Living in fear that the ex Vizier might one day recollect his memories and unleash his rage upon all of Agrabah? But, even more than that, the matter that troubled Aladdin to his core was the fact that he had actually come to like Jafar, who had depended so much on him during his convalescence. Not only did he feel responsible for him – he was never able to forget the words of the Vizier, “I was once like you” - but rather the affection that he had come to develop towards the red Djinn and his lively daughter was almost as strong as the one he felt towards his wife and child, his Jasmine and Yasin.  
On top of all of that, Jafar’s temperament had considerably quieted down. He was timid, clumsy and thoughtful. He was no longer as remissive and terrified as he had been the first period of time he spent with them after he and Ismail had freed him from Ryiad, the previous owner of his lamp and his rapist. Thanks to the exercices and the cures Ahmad had recommended Jafar had been able to step out of his aphasia and started speaking again, even though his memory appeared lost in a dream, fragments of which came to him during the quiet hours of the night, that he transferred over his canvas made of blue and cerualean fabric as fairy-tale images.  
That said, Aladdin could still trace the patterns of his old, moody temperament. Jafar could be happy for a moment and sad for the next half hour; annoyance and irritation seethe through his eyes at any sign of disturbance. But, after all, what Aladdin costantly reminded himself that he shouldn’t forget was that Jafar was basically trapped: he was the prisoner of a jail made of silver and gold, his freedom taken away from him as he also had to take care of a child that was the result of rape. He was isolated from the world, just like his mind had shut him off from his own memories. Because of these reasons, the prince consort thought that that of his protegée was a justified moodiness. But the spectre of the old, angry Jafar somehow always lingered in the atmosphere. Even now, with something as simple as ink staining the carpet, Jafar’s eyes widened in distress and Aladdin’s attempt at repairing his own damage seemed to trouble him even more.  
“D- Don-t worry, leave it to me”, Jafar said, trying to steal the wet cloth back from Aladdin’s hands.  
“After all, it is I that is always distracted. Please, don’t take the blame just to comfort me.” And with that he started to brush the carpet with strength, trying his best to hide his nervousness while one hand still occupied itself with tying the turban perfectly over his hair.  
“I am not taking the blame.” Aladdin stated as he searched for Jafar’s gaze, stubbornly set on the carpet stain. “And you don’t need to cover your hair, it is just me.”  
Jafar’s face lifted from the ground and a sigh escaped the lips that were previously sealed in a pout of concentration.  
“Yes, I do. You are a man, it is only proper for someone such as myself to hide their mane.”  
What did he mean by “such as myself”, Aladdin wasn’t fully able to figure out. Neither he, Ismail, his wife or anyone else thought it’d be a good idea to use one of the wishes to morph Jafar back to his original sex. Ahmad had strongly opposed to the simple contemplation of the suggestion, expressing his preoccupations over the possibility that it might cause an even greater shock over Jafar’s already feeble psyche. So the Djinn had drawn his own conclusion, ending up to believe he had been born like that, half man and half woman. Anyway, nobody had bothered telling him otherwise. And he seemed to not be the least intimidated by that aspect of himself.  
What Aladdin didn’t expect from Jafar, though, was his religiousness. He would often be the one to remind Aladdin of the impelling time of prayer, to gently correct his movements so that he would follow the salat ritual the right way. He would ask him to assist him into learning suras, so that he could perfectly recite them, the Holy Qu’ran being his chosen reading to exercise his speech.  
Hakim had confessed during one of the earliest days of his assignment to supervise Jafar and Kaija at the Minaret that the former Grand Vizier of Agrabah was - in his privacy - very keen on respecting the daily routine of the salat, not skipping it once. His piousness did not deter him from the practice of witchcraft and the art of plotting. To him, piety and treason could go hand in hand. That only added to Aladdin’s general opinion that the once street thief like himself did not think of himself to be performing any wrong doing. And why would he? History books and reports had taught Aladdin of countless coup d’etàts, that sometimes ended up being for the best. To this day, even though he admired the capacity of his tenacious wife to transform the beautiful on the surface but dying kingdom of Agrabah into a flourishing one, where poverty had decreased considerably in just ten years, Aladdin wasn’t so sure Jafar’s reign would have been such a terrible one. A thought he didn’t dare to confess to anybody. Sometimes even to himself.  
Lost in his train of thoughts, Aladdin didn’t realize Jafar had given up into trying to clean the ink spot and got up to take a curious look at the automaton Aladdin left on the table.  
“What is this?”  
“It’s a gift”, Aladdin said, “I thought Kaija might appreciate it. I’ve been absent for so long and I felt like it was a good way to apologize.”  
Jafar took the object between his hands and pulled the string at its end, triggering its movements. Then the Djinn kneeled over the ground and put the monkey-like toy on the carpet right next to Abu, to better admire its ministrations when flanked with the real thing.  
“You shouldn’t have done it.” Jafar said, his eyes trained on the little machine.  
“You have nothing to apologize for. Kaija must learn that she can’t always be the centre of everyone’s attentions.”  
“It’s a small token.” Aladdin replied with a cunning smile. “Maybe this way I will be able to win her love.”  
“She already adores you.”  
“Well you know… I’m also trying to make up to her father. I promised him to visit more often and I went off doing the exact opposite.”  
Jafar’s cheeks became red as a rose in an instant and before he could formulate an answer, Kaiija came running through the room towards Abu, ready to torment the little monkey, seemingly unaware – or uninterested – of the present Aladdin had brought her.  
“Abu! You little pest!” she exclaimed just before grabbing the fleeing monkey by his tail and bringing him to her chest. “Where have you been?”, Kaija said as she peppered the animal’s forehead with kisses. Good thing that he was clean.  
“Kaija!”, Jafar called his daughter’s name with a reprimanding tone.  
“What has gotten into you?! Don’t you see Aladdin’s here? Greet him properly!”  
Kaija turned Aladdin’s way, who had been looking at her with a tentative smile and eyes full of good intentions; she seemed to have grown quite a lot in the past couple of months. Her wild black hair was perfectly combed in a braided bun over the top of her head, her serpentine horizontal birthmark on her eye as big as he recollected. Only the light hue of her skin betrayed the impact of her father’s (of whom she didn’t know, she didn’t need to know) seed. Anyway she put on a facade of indefference and greeted Aladdin with the flattest voice he ever heard coming from a child.  
“Hello, Aladdin. Where have you been? Jafar and I haven’t seen you lately.”  
Jafar. That’s how she called him. Kaija was perfectly aware of the relationship that occurred between her and her father but from the beginning of her life, nobody could figure out the way she should have addressed him. Father? Mother? It was quite difficult to tell. They stuck with Jafar in the end and – contrary to any form of prejudice – Kaija’s affection towards him did not resent from it a little bit. She loved him with all of her heart and clinged to him at any possible occasion. Right now, she took Abu into her arms and walked towards him, to look for the comfort of his body, to feign indignation.  
Jafar was about to scold her for what he believed was an insolent attitude towards their guest but Aladdin knew well how to promptly get out of a disadvantaging situation. Abu was restless in Kaija’s tight embrace.  
He approached her, he kneeled in order to be at her same height, he took her hand – so he could also free Abu in the meantime– and placed a gentle kiss over it.  
“Forgive me, milady.” He said while mimicking an over the top mournful tone. “I have been terribly occupied in the past few months and that prevented me from visiting sooner. My heart has been plagued with the knowledge of your disappointment, without mentioning the ache that the loss of your presence brought upon my soul.”  
He then took in his hands the monkey automaton and extended it to the little girl, who was clutching her father’s white tunic. “This is a token to demonstrate my regret. Please, accept the apologies of a humble admiror.”  
Much like her father, Kaija didn’t need much to start blushing. Her face became completely red. Her expression shifted from disappointment to embarassment to happiness in a matter of seconds.  
“It’s nothing”, she said somewhat bashfully while picking up from Aladdin’s hands the toy monkey.  
“Have you seen Jafar’s tapestry?”, she asked, trying to shift the subject and hide her embarassment.  
“Kaija.” Jafar softly whispered to his little girl while petting her hair, severity disappearing from his voice. “What do we say when someone brings us a gift?”  
“Thank you Aladdin.” She timidly said. “It’s so pretty.”  
“It’s my pleasure.”  
The moment of tenderness was suddenly interrupted by Abu’s loud seesawing. The capuchin monkey had climbed over a bookshelf and kept hopping over the objects that were over it, becoming especially fond of tormenting a bronze sundial.  
“Come to think of it,” Jafar distractedly began to speak.  
“It is almost time for the mid-afternoon salat. Aladdin, would you like to join us for prayer? You could stay over for dinner and show Kaija how the toy works… If you’d like.”  
“Yes!” Kaija exclaimed. “Aladdin, stay! Guide our prayer!”  
The emotion of her words matched the strength of her pleading eyes. She kneeled next to him, taking his hands into her much smaller ones. She kept her gaze and with words loaded with sentiment, she went on:  
“Please, Aladdin. Stay.”  
Aladdin looked first at her mother, than back at her and didn’t find the heart to say no.  
“I would love to.”  
“Yay!” Kaija said with a wide smile.  
“Wonderful.”, Jafar exclaimed, “I’ll fetch the basin with water so we can clean ourselves and then you can guide us.”  
“Sure, it sounds amazing.”  
So they rolled a clean carpet out. They cleaned themselves with the water Jafar had provided from the lavatory downstairs and genuflected on the ground, connecting their heads with the fabric of the carpet. Aladdin was in front, Jafar right behind him – as the scholars prescribed: women should stand behind men and hermaphrodites should stay behind men and before women – and last but not least, little Kaija, whose head she had covered with a red scarf.  
Following this line, kneeling in silence, they started their prayer.


	2. Out of his element

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a very long period of time, I finally finished this chapter, which contains a lot of smut - one of my very first attempts at it - and I must say that I enjoyed it all. Even though I think I rushed it a little bit at the end I am pretty happy about the final result and all I'll tell you is that this chapter has Aladdin and Jafar confronting each other, in more ways than one... ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the end notes for translations and such! Enjoy your reading and let me know what you think. Your opinions and feedback are not only welcome but precious too :P.

The arabian moon was always a spectacle to behold, whether crescent or full.

Her luminous beauty was something that travellers from all around the world could not distance from their dreams once it was seen. Her pale, delicate, cerulean light an inspiration for cantors and poets, people who had birthed countless hymns in her honor, in the hopes of being able – someday – to attract her attention, just like boys patiently waiting for the woman they had fallen in love with to spare them a glance, half hidden behind the corner of a _madrasa_.

Aladdin smiled at that thought; he too had been like that once.

The moon had been high that night too; when he had pretended to be a prince, hidden by layers of precious clothes that were nothing but the deceptive result of magic (an illusion that was not going to last), hungry for any kind of interaction between his eyes and those of the sought-out princess’ now his wife: Sultana Jasmine. 

That had been a magical night. As a matter of fact, not even the lingering threat of death that would follow his first kiss with the woman he loved the next day could in any way warp the image of those fond memories; an innocent and nostalgic revelation that struck Aladdin now that he was once again marvelling at the sight of the full moon of the arabian desert, from the barred masterpieces that were the glass windows of Isaac’s Minaret, a glass of tea resting in his hand as the conscientious Jafar – his host and prisoner - had had nothing else to offer him.

_“I am sorry”_, he had said blushing prior that evening, his gaze low as he had been settling the dishes filled with a fuming, delicious stew made of lamb, plum and almond he had prepared for the three of them after _salat_ alongside the tray of seasoned and cooked eggplants - mixed with yogurt and eggs – that laid on the rug of the apartments’ entrance, a place appointed as their dining room.

_“I have nothing to offer you besides tea and water, nothing befitting of the royal beverages”_

_“If you mean wine, Jafar, please rest assured. You do not partake into the activity of drinking so that you wouldn’t have any alcohol in your living quarters would only be the logical consequence of it”, _Aladdin had tried to reassure him as he was well aware that the former Vizier’s sobriety extended even to these kind of matters.

In fact, Hakim had once informed him – in those rare instances in which the two of them shared any sorts of dialogue, more out of common courtesy than any real interest in one another’s businesses – that Jafar had never drank a single drop of wine (at least not in front of him and not even in the days of his military career where that kind of activity was the favourite diversion amongst soldiers) and had made it pretty clear to everyone that was around him that he abhorred the act, as he believed it to be a sign of moral decay.

A truly pious man, if you didn’t consider his plots of deposition.

Maybe, severe was a more appropriate term, in the end.

Yet, that kind of severity only fueled the fire of the belief that Aladdin really had to be one of the djinn’s favourite – after Kaija, of course – because the man had clearly showed him that he was willing to pass over Aladdin’s fondness of alcohol.

Even though, actually, Aladdin also thought of himself as too fond of the beverage.

_“Nonetheless”_, Jafar had protested, mumbling between his hands, _“I should have something for when you come around. It’s called hospitality.”_

He had then lighted two or three coals of hookah for Aladdin. Nothing particularly refined, light herbs and spices, yet it had felt like a nice thing to do; a cherished guest in a modest, righteous household.

Besides, the smell of cheep herbs was something that Aladdin truly missed from his days in the streets.

In the end, refinement and preciousness were not really qualities meant for him, a sentiment that he shared with Jafar who had anyhow been able to adapt to the royal etiquette better than him, back in his vizier days.

Or at least, that’s what the palace keepers whispered gleefully between themselves when they thought they could not be heard.

The scent of the burning hookah coals reached him even now that he was sitting next to the glass window of the dining room, the carpet on which they had eaten still studded with the remainings of their supper, as he gently parted the frames of the windows – careful to do it in the quietest manner possible so that he would not wake Kaija, distended over her parent’s lap where, cradled by the comfort of his strong arms and his sweet siging, she had dozed off after dinner – to let the natural, crystal clear light of the moon enter their space, a tinge of magic filling the relaxed atmosphere they had fallen in after eating.

Jafar’s eyes slightly squinted as the blue rays of the moon reached in their full strength his visage, a grimace settling upon his mouth; he really didn’t like the natural light of the moon as he had gotten used to the faint one coming from the candles.

It was almost cute to witness him sport that sort of a pout on his face, like he was about to complain and ask Aladdin to close the windows again.

But he wouldn’t do that.

No. For Aladdin’s sake.

Since their meeting in the desert five years ago, Jafar had developed a sort of morbid loyalty to Aladdin -who had rescued him from the clutches of his rapist – and even though he had re-developed a full personality with his likes and dislikes Jafar still preferred to not contradict Aladdin.

He was yeilding and pliant.

Something that Aladdin wasn’t sure he was happy about.

“If you wish, I can put the windows together again. I just wanted to let some air into the room. You know, with the smoke of the hookah and all.”

Jafar turned to look at the hookah next to him, then again to his little girl, whose hair he was gently stroking, and replied to the Prince Consort of Agrabah:

“No, you’re right. I should have put it off before but Kaija gets upset whenever she is sleeping over my lap and she wakes up to find me missing, even if just for a few moments.”

“Do not worry.”, Aladdin exclaimed as he got up and directed himself toward the shisha, intent on extinguishing its flames.

“I could have done it myself. I should have thought about the fact that you’re taking care of your child.”

Thoughts of his own boy, Yasin, flooded his mind and the familiarity of the scene, the thought of the two of them holding each other in their sleep, brought a smile to Aladdin’s lips.

“It’s very nice of you to not get up so that she wouldn’t feel left alone not even for an istant. You’re a good parent Jafar.”

And he really meant that.

Kaija had been a child sired from rape and he thought that Jafar’s diligence into taking care of her – even if the first couple of days of her life had signed off to an odd start as Jafar had refused to feed her, something that had more to do with the ailment of breastfeeding then an actual unwillingness to take care of her as they later discovered – was one of the most touching acts of love he had ever witnessed or experienced.

To think that the man who had been capable of such a proof of love was the same that had been willing to force Aladdin’s dear wife into marrying him and exterminating the entire retinue of the palace was beyond Aladdin’s every understanding.

Yet, Jafar’s frown deepened and his words expressed his doubts:

“Am I, though? How can you say I am a good parent to her? You don’t see how I treat her when you’re not around.”

“What do you mean?”, Aladdin inquired, scratching his stubble and closing the hookah’s cap, its faint light disappearing from the scene of their idleness.

“I mean that I think I might be loosing my mind. Sometimes I get mad at her for the simplest of things. For example, today I became upset because she had been asking the same question all day while I was trying to sow and when she reached what felt like the hundredth time she had been inquiring I yelled at her from the top of my lungs and I banished her to our bedchambers. That’s why she wasn’t upstairs with me when you first came in, she was grounded.”

Aladdin suppressed his laughter, a low chuckle coming out of his lips that Jafar couldn’t avoid to notice.

“Why are you laughing?”, he asked, lowly as to not wake Kaija, “This is serious. I get mad at her for doing nothing. She doesn’t deserve such a treatment.”

“I’m sorry Jafar, It’s just that to me it looks like she has been stressing you out all day. It is normal to have this kind of reaction with children. Their energy could bring the _Bahamut_ down.”

“Especially if you are not allowed to leave in any way the place you are sharing with your child”, Aladdin thought between himself while trying to repress the coming into words of that opinion.

It wouldn’t help reminding Jafar that he was trapped in the minaret.

Jafar raised his eyes from his daughter’s sleeping figure and addressed Aladdin once again: “Do you also throw tantrums at Yasin?”

“Well, no.”, Aladdin replied bluntly. “But first of all, Yasin is the one who trows tantrums at me. He is an extremely spoiled child. And, secondly, he spends most of his time with his nannies and the housekeepers, so I barely get time to get mad at him.”

Jafar’s frown deepened

“Do you really think that Yasin is spoiled?”, he said.

“Oh yes. Frankly, way more than the average child could be since he is a prince. He has so many toys to play with and so many great people willing to provide him company and yet he feels like nothing is enough for him. If he only knew what I _didn’t_ have…”

Aladdin once again repressed a laugh, fearing to wake poor little Kaija.

“Look at me. I am already talking like an old man, speaking of what I didn’t have when Yasin comes from an entirely different background from the one I was born in. But I do think it’s impossible for a parent to not have something to reprimand to their child. I mean, love is not the same as blind adoration.”

He licked his lips and carried on.

“At least you are spending time with Kaija. I only see Yasin late at night and usually it is already time for him to go to sleep when I get to meet him.”

The smile disappeared from Aladdin’s face only to be replaced by a look of sadness.

“The truth is, I am the one who is a terrible parent. I spend most of my time with dignitaries and nobles who dislike me at best and want me dead at worst and instead of running to Yasin whenever I have free time, I just use it to run away from it all, even from my family. I am a very selfish man, Jafar.”

“Do not say that”, Jafar exclaimed, apprehension filling his voice, “You need to spare time for yourself in between your schedule. If you didn’t, you would drop on the ground unconscious in a matter of seconds. I am sure Yasin perfectly understands you.”

“And I understand you”, Aladdin thought, “or – at least – the previous version of you.”

The looks of disgust etched into the faces of the finest people Agrabah had to offer in the presence of the rustic husband of the Sultana were something terribly upsetting. Enraging even.

“You are a good parent, Jafar.”, Aladdin said breaking the thick silence that had fallen between them after his. “I really think it.”

Jafar leaned down over Kaija’s sleeping form to place a kiss over her forehead after he had moved away the strays of black hair from the top of her serpent birth mark.

“Thank you, Aladdin.”, he finally conceded, “It means a lot to me.”

They stayed like that for a while, stilled in their movements, basking in the low light of the desert moon (oh-so-dear to the children of Adam) and enjoying the tranquillizing quality of silence, ready to send them off to the Land of Nod this late at night.

“Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and start shaking.”, Jafar confessed, unexpectedly.

“From time to time, I even find myself sheding some tears. I do not know what is happening to me. The only thing that is clear is that truly nothing in my life is pristine.”

Met with Aladdin’s guilty silence, Jafar couldn’t help but sigh as he carried on.

“Please, forgive me for imposing on you my apprehension, I have no one to talk to; Kaija is a child and I don’t think Hakim is interested. Yet, I feel like I am witnessing my life from afar, unable to fully live it. My past torments me - memories come to me in the form of nightmares – and I still don’t know who I was, who I am, who will I be. It almost feels like my life is for rent, that nothing I have is truly mine.”

A heavier silence fell once again between them, as Jafar’s dreads filled Aladdin - who was lying, omitting the truth from the man that was haunted by the uncertainties of his own past in which the Prince Consort was greatly involved – with senses of guilt. Should he tell him? How could he tell him?

“I think it’s time for me to leave, allow you to sleep.” Aladdin sighed after a few moments, finally sealing the hookah at the top with its cup, trying to run away from the situation out of fear that quietness might make his heart explode and spill its secrets.

“Why?”, Jafar asked. “It’s so dark outside. You might loose your sense of orientation or worse, be attacked by bandits.”

At that last assumption, small tremors began to run through Jafar’s whole body – the memory of his past aquaintance with ruffians still a scar that shook his spirit – and he had to bring Kaija closer to him to reconnect with reality. Neverthless, he beseeched Aladdin:

“Please stay. I will gladly leave you my bed. Me and Kaija will rest here once I finish displacing the dishes.”

“Don’t be absurd”, the former thief replied, “It’d be extremely rude of me to take up on your offer. You are a parent with a child, you need to stay as comfortable as you can.”

“Yet you are my guest.”, Jafar contested, “And guests do not sleep on the floor.”

“As hosts do not.”

They could have probably carried on, bickering like this until the sun began to shine once again over the walls of the minaret, but Aladdin was well aware that Jafar wouldn’t let him leave (not that he could stop him in any way, of course, but insistence was always an attitude that Aladdin had difficulties to deal with) so he tried to meet him halfway.

“Look, how about we do like this? I bring Kaija to bed and, after we have freed the rug from the remainings of our dinner, we decide what it’s best to do. Don’t worry, I promise it won’t take too long, so you can go back to Kaija’s side very quickly.”

“You don’t need to clean up.”, Jafar said in an almost commanding voice. “I will.”

And, at that point, Aladdin had learned that Jafar’s rebuttals were sometimes pure rhetoric used to signify something else; in a form, his very own peculiar way to say he agreed.

So Aladdin approached the two and took Kaija from Jafar’s loving arms as he started to hum the tune of that old lullaby his mother used to sing to him while he disappeared in the bedroom, after he had lifted the thin cerulean curtains that divided the parlor from the pair’s personal chambers.

* * *

After he had put Kaija to bed, tucked her sheets and placed a kiss over her sleepy forehead, Aladdin once again separated the linel curtains of the bedchambers just to pull them shut more tightly – to allow Kaija a better rest, shielded from light and rumours – and found himself in the makeshift dining room where Jafar was sitting dutifully and patiently over the rugs, completely naked.

He was propped on his knees while his hands, which wrists were still adorned by the golden bracelets of the lamp, were tucked in his lap - singlehandedly illuminated by the lunar rays - awaiting for Aladdin’s eyes to set upon him; the desire of an approval a lingering need filling the atmosphere between them.

And – as a matter of fact and to be completely honest - the mere sight of Jafar’s nude skin, even though still marred by Ryiad’s aggressive bite marks and the scars of a blade that digged deep enough in his flesh to hurt but not enough to make him completely bleed out, was already enough of a shock to Aladdin. Not that he thought it to be horrendous; the point was that Aladdin’s conscience couldn’t put up with the thought of finding the djinn’s nudity - timid, so deliciously fragile and scarred – arousing.

But he should have known that this was what Jafar planned all along.

“Your clothes…”, Aladdin timidly tried an approach.

“Does… does my appearance bother you?”, Jafar asked, turning to face Aladdin, still sitting on his knees, his hands skimming over his pelvis in an attempt to cover it, out of pride or simply normal decency codes.

Was that the reason the only garment that layed on his figure was his ivory turban?

“No, Jafar. Your aspect doesn’t bother me at all.”, Aladdin replied. “In fact, it quite arouses me, and you know this well.” Was the thought that lived unspoken into his mind. He licked his lips, trying to repress himself and spoke again.

“But you can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep doing this.”

“What precisely are we doing?”, Jafar asked, looking at Aladdin expectantly.

He was waiting for him to come over and kneel next to the ex Vizier, where the latter would take his hand into his’, guiding it through the exploration of his marred body.

But Aladdin wouldn’t concede, not this time.

“Please, don’t insult my intelligence by acting naive.”, Aladdin sighed.

“I’m not acting in any way. I’m simply wondering what you mean by ‘this’.”

Jafar licked his lips as a frown appeared on his face, irritation etched in his somatic traits.

“Because as I see it”, Jafar continued, mindless of Aladdin’s mild attempt at regaining control of the situation, “there isn’t really a word to describe ‘this’ that we are doing. There is not now and there never was so I truly do not understand what’s the issue at hand if I want to remain naked in my own home.”

“The problem is not your nudity. The matter at hand concerns what you want us to do with it.”

“Oh”, Jafar sighed as he slowly pulled himself up from the ground and walked into Aladdin’s direction. “What _I_ want us to do with it? I wouldn’t have begun anything if you hadn’t shown any interest in the past.”

Jafar was now standing in front of him, the beauty of his body highlighted by the light of the full moon as Aladdin’s gaze skimmed from his face, to his nipples and – finally – to his stretched open thighs where the Prince Consort could well admire the trace that his black, curly pubic hair left in its path leading to the tip of the vulva.

And, just like that, with nothing that really transpired yet, he could feel himself hardening.

Was that an involuntary spell that Jafar played on him? A residue magic that the body of the lamp left attached on Jafar’s skin? Aladdin hadn’t felt this manipulated since that night Ismail had him dance for the then Princess Jasmine fifteen years ago, since Jafar himself had been able to control his body when he had become a sorcerer.

Yet, what the the red djinn said was all true.

It had all begun when Kaija was still an infant and Jafar was refusing to feed her. Not like he had been trying to dispose of her with neglect, he really had just been repulsed with the idea of breastfeeding, finding it uncomfortable at best and traumatic at worst. Yet, tired of Kaija’s costant wailings during the night that kept everyone up, the Sultan had ordered Jafar – or as he now liked to call him, “the ingrate” – to be forced to feed her and so some idiotic guards had the brilliant idea of tying Jafar to a chair, open his robes and forcefully attach Kaija to his nipples, letting her take what she wanted without permission. That had been the second night in his life Aladdin had heard a sound that inhumane. He had quickly run to his rescue and found him babbling, stuttering, as tears quickly and copiously filled his eyes, making his lashes heavier. It was still back when he struggled to talk but the words he said when Aladdin and Dalia had gotten there had been crystal clear:

_“Please, tell Master to not bite me. I… I don’t like it.”_

So in the end, even the unfading scratches over Jafar’s nipples had been nothing more but Ryiad’s traumatic wrongdoings, the memory of that bastard and Aladdin’s subsequent guilt still haunting them like ghosts.

Bu even though they had asserted that the Sultan’s method had not been effective (and Aladdin had thought that he should have realized this even before trying to solve the problem with it), Kaija still had to be fed somehow as she had kept refusing every wetnurse she had been given to - only wanting Jafar - and they came up with a solution: since Aladdin seemed capable with his sheer presence to calm the man down, he would stay with them whenever Kaija demanded food.

At first, he would simply stroke Jafar’s hair gently, sweetly, to make him relax, kiss his forehead, and then - somewhere between the first days of Kaija’s first year of life - it happened.

Jafar’s flow of milk had almost came to its end and Aladdin had taken up on the task of starting to pinch and roll Jafar’s nipples between his own fingers to try and extract as much remaining milk as he could. He had tried to convince himself that it had been a purely medical process, something that Ahmad would perform were he there with them and not on one of his voyages, as he had also tried to ignore the hardening of his penis whenever he’d do that, in close proximity and contact to Jafar’s body. And then, one day, out of the blue – Kaija still laying a feet away from them, ready to be fed – when Aladdin’s cheek had been sprayed with a bead of milk, as he had pinched the man’s nipples too hard in an effort to squeeze out as much fluid as he could, Jafar made a high-pitched moan as his eyelids closed, his cheeks reddened and his lips spreaded wide open in an expression of bliss: an orgasm had hit him.

Aladdin’s fingers had then tentitavely skimmed down his chest to reach his navel where he stayed for a couple of seconds, wavering, before finally reaching his pelvis and placing one finger over his pulsing vulva. It had been wet.

And that was really it.

No word needed to be added and nothing more needed to be done.

No permission sought because it had already been given while any sense of guilt was washed away by desire.

From that moment on, Aladdin had used every excuse possible to go and visit Jafar – Kaija needs to be fed, Kaija needs a new blanket, Kaija is sick – as often as he could, anything that would allow them to share a private moment.

To finally release the sexual tension that had been growing between them.

They would both come on those encounters.

Even though penetration never occured, a form of respect on the former thief’s part that he wasn’t sure his wife would have appreciated, Aladdin and Jafar would always find the most creative ways to pleasure one another as their mutual understanding in the matters of the bed mirrored in their everyday growing fondness of one another, filled with ever growing affection and endless talks.

Jafar’s solititude corresponded with Aladdin’s own, who felt like an outsider in his own home, between the ones who now were his kin and yet treated him as nothing more than an outcast that their Sultana had chosen as a consort. A mere game for her to play, as they liked to whisper behind his back.

After the initial euphoria that had spurred their wedding on, Aladdin had had to come to terms with the fact that, even though his love for Jasmine was still unwavering and true to the core, his hopes to finally find a family in the arms of royalty had been delusional to say the least. He knew nothing of their world and after his marriage he had found himself to deal with the most disparate of situations: etiquette, schedules, trade, duties, political affairs and decisions he wasn’t fully sure he understood - much less certain that he agreed with - were some of the aspects of Jasmine’s world that Aladdin had tried so hard to fit in.

A goal that, if you asked Aladdin, he had done a decent job to achieve.

He had worked hard, started as an illiterate to become a well-read teacher and bard and yet, for all of his efforts, he hadn’t seemed able to completely pull it off.

No matter how many books he would read, how princely he would act, he was still a commoner. Something he had learned not to be ashamed of with time (because yes, Ismail had told him so, had proved him so, but concepts are hard to accept even if we do understand them), to the point in which he could safely say he wasn’t pretending anymore, that he was himself most of the time.

Even though, sometimes, etiquette still required him to put up an act.

Those were the instances that frustrated him the most and yet it was the everyday stares of contempt he got from almost everyone at court (sometimes, by his own disappointed father-in-law) that really had him upset.

Even after Yasin’s oh-so-pursued birth (a duty, that of procreating, that had him agonizing over, as cruel rumors about his supposed impotence spread around every corner of the palace), the courtesans and nobles had kept finding something to reprimand Aladdin with: his looks, his “unsightly” attitude, his “humble” manners.

And that had been how Jafar’s presence had become a familiar, sought and welcomed distraction from this costant judging, even enjoyable.

Sure, Aladdin still had his friends – Ismail, Abu and the Carpet – but somehow he had felt like only Jafar could fully understand him.

They were both terribly lonely people in their own homes, prisoners despite the apparent kindness of their captors, and to be truthful, the daggering looks he was pierced with everyday at the Palace had started to make him understand what kind of place Jafar’s madness had come from.

Inadequacy was one of the many torments that liked to pursue the both of them.

And they had found each other in their loneliness.

After all, didn’t they both come from the same place? Weren’t they both feeling out of place, struggling to understand how to direct their lives?

“I was once like you” had been the phrase that persecuted Aladdin’s thoughts and somewhere between his newfound frenzy and somehow simultaneous deepening frustration, Jasmine had probably been able to read through the lines and had ordered for Jafar to be moved from the Palace, some place secured, where he wouldn’t be able to escape.

But not near her baby.

Not near her almost-surely cheating husband.

But Aladdin hadn’t stopped visiting him, each and each time believing he would come out of Jafar’s prison without any istance of betrayal having occured, and every time being proven wrong.

That’s exactly how they were here, the same situation reapeating over and over.

Jafar had taken advantage of Aladdin’s temporary indecision to take his face into his hands, caressing it sweetly, with the familiarity that had built between them over time.

Aladdin himself directed his own hands over those of Jafar, resting upon them, reciprocating the caress.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”, Jafar stated. “But even though I can understand the stress this situation puts you through with your wife and your conscience, I am selfish and I think you want this as much as I do.”

Aladdin’s lips curved into a smile as his mind slowly came back to reality.

Jafar wasn’t selfish, the thief was the one who was taking advantage of him. Not only was he the cause of his tribolations - his rape - he was also his irresponsible jailor and somewhat new abuser. In a way, Aladdin recognized that what he did with Jafar came close to abuse: the man had no idea what both their identities were and doubted that he would still seek Aladdin’s company if he knew the facts that transpired between them.

And yet, he looked into Jafar’s eyes, and couldn’t suppress his desire, nor the selfish tears that started to run down his cheeks, a physical manifestion of the knowledge of his cowardice burning into his flesh and heart.

At the sight of his tears, Jafar’s eyes widened in a look of compassion - a totally misplaced empathy filling his eyes - and hugged Aladdin in an effort to comfort him.

They stayed like that for a while before Jafar addressed him again.

“I am sorry I have caused this much anguish to you. You are right, we shouldn’t be doing this. You have a wife and my daughter needs me.”

“You are also right when you say that I crave for this.”, Aladdin mumbled into Jafar’s shoulder, who was still so much taller than him.

Aladdin would have liked to say that had been it, that he left Jafar to redress himself and went back to his home, where he would find his wife and his sleeping child, but he was weak - weak and cowardice - and captured Jafar’s lips with his own, sharing with him a passionate kiss.

As his tongue travelled through Jafar’s mouth’s inner walls, Aladdin placed his hands on the red djinn’s slim waist, keeping them there with great force and guiding him down on the rugs where he had the man lay himself upon.

They interrupted their kissing just to take in some air, feeling the need to breathe, and Aladdin reached over to Jafar’s head, where he swiftly proceeded to remove the man’s white turban. His hair hadn’t grown that long but the medium-length twirls and crests of his curls still cleaned up nice and the crimson color that appeared over Jafar’s cheeks (who became so arousingly shy when his mane was displayed) was nothing less than a true spectacle to behold.

Aladdin kissed his forehead in an attempt to make the man feel more comfortable with his body and then focused all his energies in exploring the man’s body, his tongue the instrument of discovery.

One would have said that after their many encounters Aladdin would have now known Jafar’s body as it had been his own, probably better.

But that was not the point.

Some people forgot that every time feels like the first if desire still harbours in your heart and desire always comes side by side with the frenzy of betrayal.

So, it was only natural that Jafar’s skin would feel like a new land to explore each and each time again.

The rough surface of his sealed injuries matted his otherwise smooth epidermis and their quantity was always something that took Aladdin aback.

Bites, scars and burns felt like a constellation that expanded over Jafar’s entire body, making the skin there not only coarse to the touch but also extremely sensitive.

And that’s why Aladdin would linger there, trying to replace the terrible memories – or better yet, in this case, the haunting of those memories – with his soft kisses, with the mappings of his tongue.

Jafar’s jawline was his favourite place to start; the prickly teasing of his beard’s curls were a sensation that the Prince Conosrt’s caresses always longed for, while his tongue engaged in the real struggle for pleasure and attached itself over Jafar’s neck, where his lips would soon follow to gently start sucking over one of Ryiad’s bitemarks.

Jafar had slowly become accostumed to this approach of his and even if at first he would try to control himself and tremble with restraint, now his sweet pushes that projected him forward to Aladdin’s talented mouth made the former street thief realize that his intent and efforst of cancelling the memory of that scar had finally paid off.

He then led his tongue towards Jafar’s chest, leaving in its path a wet trace of saliva, where he stopped as usual, focusing on his next objective.

He tentatively brought his thumb and index finger over to Jafar’s marred nipple, testing his chances by circling the areola, waiting for the red djinn’s sentence, whose eyes were now closed, his cheeks filled with crimson and now that his hands found place over his mouth - to try and stifle his own moans and cries as not to wake Kaija.

“Too bad”, Aladdin thought, “I would have loved to hear you.”

“Is this okay?”, he asked instead, his fingers tingling in anticipation, awaiting for the man’s permission to slowly move towards the tip of the nipple so they could capture it, pinch it.

“Yes.”, Jafar managed to rasp between moans, under the stifling power of his hands. “I am fine… I am fine when you do it.”

So, there really was no reason to contain one’s self, was there?

Aladdin promptly lowered his head and engulfed the tip of Jafar’s nipple into his mouth, taking it between his teeth and slightly grazing it. That motion had the man beneath him emit a loud sob that subsequently made him cover his mouth once again as embarassment clouded his face and his chest raised in an attempt to get more of Aladdin’ministrations.

He truly was adorable.

Aladdin started sucking then, harder and harder with each lap of his tongue, and repeated the same process on the other nipple, switching places from time to time as not to neglect neither of them.

When Jafar’s thrusting became insistent and more powerful, Aladdin ended the torture over his nipples – but still kept his hands and fingers there, rolling the latters over the tip, just in case – to resume the exploration of the rest of his body, realizing that the man’s climax had been about to drop and didn’t want their lovemaking to be over yet.

He travelled through the crest of his pectorals to reach the muscular plains of his abdomen, his flesh only slightly softened by Kaija’s presence there some years ago, a presence that still lingered in his skin thanks to the stretchmarks the delivery left when the starry-eyed girl was born. It was among these stretchmarks that Aladdin noticed the largest scar on Jafar’s body, a long white cut that tore his flesh from his pelvis to the side of his right hip, a clear sign that someone had purposely held him there while the dagger traced a path over his right side. A torture from Sherabad? Or Ryiad? Aladdin really couldn’t tell.

His reaction, though, wasn’t one of horror. No, he stopped his ministrations there where he placed the gentlest of kisses, devotion filling the intent of his gesture as his lips remained chaste over that part of skin, almost as if Aladdin was kissing the feet of a saint.

Yet, spiritual purity wasn’t certainly the most urgent of his concerns right now. His hesitation didn’t last long and his tongue started yet again to travel along the former Vizier’s navel to his pelvis, where Aladdin took in the raw scent of pubic hair (that Jafar had clearly hastily washed with some rose water that they had used to clean their hands before supper, when Aladdin was carrying Kaija to bed) before directing himself toward his ultimate aim: Jafar’s clit.

Oh, that sweet, sweet spot!

Whenever Aladdin touched it, Jafar’s resistance melted and the barriers his decorum usually put on crashed under the sheer force of pleasure.

So, he gently started to suckle it, as if his life depended on his delicacy, while his fingers abandoned their task on Jafar’s nipples – that were now way too far for him to reach – to part the man’s folds. The rough sensation that the uneven surface of the scars left on Aladdin’s fingers whenever he’d pass by an old time injury of Jafar’s did not end with the touching of his most nether regions. A few little cuts, an irregular stretching of his entrance and a burn over one of his bigger folds taught Aladdin that Ryiad truly was without mercy; he would say that the man was a monster but the problem was that he was far too human: mythical creatures were not capable of such cruelty. And this savage behaviour was the kind of thing that had Aladdin extremely upset, angry even.

But Jafar was waiting patiently for him right in this istant, expecting for their coupling to reach a climax, his face a marvelous palette of red colors, his mouth open and tainted with delicious saliva.

He carried on.

His mouth resumed the task of engulfing his clit while his teeth and tongue played with it, moving it, rolling it, scratching it. His fingers skimmed over the sensitive, hard crests of Jafar’s vulva, just to reach his entrance and slowly, one, two, three fingers penetrated the man, who was not only trembling, but convulsing with want.

As a matter of fact, he buried his face into the cushions that layed around the carpet and next to his head while he used his hands to keep Aladdin’s own head – gently though, something that felt more as an encouragement than a demand – between his thighs that the Prince Consort was full aware of scratching; causing a prickly, exciting sensation with his beard.

“Aladdin…”, Jafar whispered, his voice more erotic than he had ever heard, spurring the man on, whose own neglected, hardened cock started to trickle precum and wet his garments.

He had reached a point in which ignoring his erection had almost become painful and he decided to relieve himself by delivering his shaft to the cool chill of the night air.

He could feel that Jafar was about to cum.

So he had an idea.

He rose from his place between Jafar’s thighs and searched for the man’s eyes, so that he could make him understand his intentions and after the man’s foggied eyes and head nodded approval, Aladdin hugged him from behind and turned him to lay over one side, his left one. He divaricated his legs, spread them wide open - even more so than was necessary but the temptation of seeing him in that position was too great - and laid his hard penis over Jafar’s left thigh. He then proceeded to shut the man’s legs as tight as he could, helped in the task by Jafar’s swift understanding, and started to thrust bewteen them until they both reached their climax.

Jafar emitted an impossible noise, almost soundless, when Aladdin too reached the peak, ejaculating on the inside of the red djinn’s thigs and over a little bit of the carpet.

Jafar’s vagina felt soft and moist and his previously tense limbs became relaxed and jellylike, a sign that he had cum as well.

They remained like that for a while, both trying to even their shaky breaths and caressing one another, the aftermath of mating becoming an excuse to cuddle.

When an acceptable amount of time had transpired and Aladdin was sure that he would have fallen asleep would he have not gotten up, he districated himself from Jafar’s fucked out persona and cuddly form to rise to his feet so he could take back in his hands his loose and dirty pantaloons.

He directed himself towards the refresher and there he collected some water from the bathing pool, used it to try and clean off the traces of sperm from his pants. Once he believed he had done a decent job, he fetched a basin and filled it with water, took a cloth that was laying near to the bathing pool and exited the finely paved chamber.

He found Jafar still laying on the rugs, doziness the sensation that seeped through his half-lidded eyes, as he struggled to wait for Aladdin drifting off.

That stole a smile from Aladdin’s face.

It was very late in the night, soon it would be dawn, and yet Jafar was waiting for Aladdin’s acknowledgement before sleeping in his own home.

He scooted over and knelt by Jafar’s side, opened his legs once again, this time to clean him off of the residue of their lovemaking. He felt him shiver as he brought the wet cloth to the inner parts of his thighs but he soon relaxed once he realized that the foreign sensation was Aladdin’s doing and turned so that he was laying on his back, allowing Aladdin better access to perform his task.

Aladdin was diligent in it and a peaceful, mutual and friendly silence filled the air between them until Jafar opened his eyes, almost as if a sudden revelation had awoke him from his slumber, and – his eyes still half-lidded, still gazing to the moon that was hanging high in the sky outside the window of the minaret – spoke:

“Can you bring Kaija back to the Palace with you, next time you come to visit?”

Aladdin’s motions abruptly stopped and a frown appeared on his face, even if it was almost impossible to tell beneath the darkness of the parts of the apartments that were not bathed with the light of the moon.

“Why’”, he asked Jafar, perfectly knowing what the answer would be, but nervously trying to buy himself some time.

“What do you mean ‘why’?”, Jafar replied, “Because Kaija needs to be outside of these walls sometimes, see new places, maybe make some friends, as I suppose children of her age do. I can see she is starting to feel lonely here.”

“I am sure you are enough of a company for her.”, Aladdin rebuked, starting yet again to rub the rug over Jafar’s legs, even though there wasn’t much that needed to be cleaned anymore.

“No, I am not.”, Jafar insisted but even though he turned to face him, Aladdin refused to look him in the eyes.

What was he supposed to say? Reveal that everyone wanted Kaija trapped there with her parent?

“Look,” Jafar tried again. “If… If _that man_ is still looking for me, I mean, I th-thought about it and I-I don’t think he knows about my child. Before you… Before we met he was lamenting that… that his seed was not attaching. That my womb was useless.”

Jafar sobbed, unable to continue his speech without memories of his abuse raising to the surface, and there the great lie layed.

They had told him, to justify his isolation to this minaret, from the world, that Ryiad – his rapist, his tormentor that still followed him in his dreams –had probably survived their last encounter and that they had the suspicion that he was somehow looking for them so that he could continue performing those terrible deeds.

The mere idea itself had Jafar complying with everything they decided to do with him, falsely claiming that his isolation would keep him safe.

But even in the face of resurfacing pain, Jafar’s love for his daughter proved to be greater and he spoke up again.

“You don’t need to take me outside but if… that man… if that man is looking for someone he is looking for me. I know I am asking much of you but Kaija isn’t guilty of what is happening between us and… and she needs to be around more people. I don’t want her to feel lonely as she does now, not even for an istant more.”

Aladdin’s frown deepened and his hands stopped moving as they rested over Jafar’s thighs. He didn’t know what to do.

Jafar placed his hands over those of Aladdin’s and begged him once again.

“Aladdin, please. We can stop this whenever you want. I will not try to seduce you anymore if that’s what you request for Kaija to be at the Palace with you, your wife and your child, I swear.”

More silence filled the air.

“Please, Aladdin”, Jafar insisted, his eyes looking for those of the man whose name he had just spoken, “I beg you.”

“I will speak with Jasmine.”, Aladdin replied after a moment, finally submitting to the djinn’s please.

“Thank you. It means a lot for me.”

“Don’t even say it.”

“Please, don’t even say it.” He repeated in his head. “You don’t know how sorely you are mistaken in apologizing to me.”

But that was it.

The deal had been sealed.

After Aladdin finished to clean off Jafar’s figure he helped him redress and brought him to his room, where Kaija was still peacefully sleeping, awaiting even in her slumber the reassuring presence of her parent – her toy monkey laying on the ground next to her side of the bed – and at the foot of which Jafar placed one last kiss over Aladdin’s lips before saluting him and putting himself to bed.

Then Aladdin exited the bedchamber and pulled the curtains closed as he next directed himself toward the glass window.

Unlike Jafar, no magic spell could keep him there and he threw his figure outside of the window, only for the magic carpet who had layed peacefully beneath the top of the tower – Abu his only company as the little monkey had decided he would be better off with the enchanted rug rather than in the presence of a seemingly endlessly energetic and harassing Kaija – to catch him and soar him off to the Palace, under the benevolent light of the arabian moon.

* * *

It didn’t take long for Aladdin to get back to the Palace, even though he had disappeared from its halls from almost an entire day; a much needed break from his duties, if you asked him.

Dawn was yet to come, the warm rays of the sun a presence the Prince Consort expected to be delighted with in a couple of hours, and that had been a terrific time for him to come back, he realized. Very few people were wandering through the corridors as even the most diligent of servants had retired to the safe alcove of their beds and breakfast didn’t require to be prepared at least for another hour. The only professionals that stood awake in the middle of this suspended-in-time castle were none other than the guards on their duty, the same ones that had once captured him in the night and now bowed whenever he would pass in front of them.

Said again, that felt extremely awkward.

He hopped down from the Magic Carpet to the balcony of the bedchambers he shared with Jasmine before waving goodnight (or maybe good day) to his fellows as Abu had decided to spend the rest of the night with the Rug.

In fact, over the years, Abu had developed what Aladdin thought to be an adorable fondness for the Carpet and noticed the fact that he loved to spend as much time as possible with it, something that made his heart burn with happiness.

Now he just hoped that the doors to his room were open, so that he could enter.

That turned out to be the case.

He shed his jacket and left it on a nearby chair, where he positioned one of his feet to better unfasten his boots, quietly, as not to rouse Jasmine’s sleeping figure, her long hair distributing all over the cushions and mattress, some of it even falling down to the ground so that when Aladdin finished untying his boots he scooted over his wife and raised her hair from the immaculate pavement they had been laying on.

That, anyhow, caused her to awake and, with her, Rajah – who had been sleeping on his side of the bed.

She rubbed her tired eyes before turning to Aladdin, checking him over from head to toe, sleep still filling her eyes since she was unable to shake it off.

“Sorry, did I wake you?”, Aladdin asked, quite predictably.

“Where have you been?”, was her stone-cold reply, as she propped herself up on her elbows, yawning, trying to wave Rajah off of his side of the mattress with a gentle caress.

“Isaac’s minaret.”, he responded, not daring to challenge his fate by declaring loud and clear he had been with Jafar.

The feeling that his wife somehow knew always lingered between the unspoken words of their dialogues and to be truthful, Aladdin hadn’t been particularly subtle about it.

“Why does this not surprise me?”, she said, lying back on her cushions, raising her fingers to Aladdin’s forehead, intent on affectionately move his bangs away from his eyes.

“Sorry.”

She kissed him then, unexpectedly, yet sweetly, and said:

“It’s nothing.”

Then, she welcomed him in a tight embrace as he placed his head over her breasts and - almost like nothing had happened before - they made love.

It was different from the thing that he had with Jafar; it wasn’t as exciting, nor as risky, but it had a domestic, tender quality that life as a married couple from fifteen years tended to develop between the parties and, after Aladdin came inside of her, he held his place, enjoying the sweet caresses and soft kisses that the aftermath of their union required.

It was amongst these sacred moments that Aladdin took courage and addressed his wife; presumptously, maybe, but rightfully so.

“I think Kaija should come live at the Palace.”

Jasmine’s caressing motions stopped and, after a couple of minutes of silence, she replied:

“Yes. She should.”

“Is it fine with you?”

“It is not about what is fine with me, Aladdin”, the Sultana (because that was the role she was now playing, a Sultana, his sovereign, the severity of her voice a proof of that) said.

“It is about what is best for a child. And she doesn’t deserve to be trapped for the rest of her life in a tower, no matter what her father has done.”

Aladdin smiled, delighted by his wife’s words and comprehension.

“Thank you, Jasmine. It means a lot to me.”

“However”, che carried on, “I have one condition. You have to tell her father the truth.”

“Jasmine…”, he began.

“Do not, Aladdin. Don’t presume that I do not know what is transpiring between you two and most importantly, do not fool yourself with the idea that he will never know. Soon, his memory will come back, as well as his hatred and then he will turn against you, his anger a thousand times stronger.”

She paused to consider her next words and addressed him one final time.

“If this is about what’s right and what’s wrong then omitting the truth is also wrong, just like what you two are doing is wrong. If you really care about him, Kaija, Yasin and me, you will tell Jafar the truth and you will stop. He will serve his punishment, Kaija will live a normal life and you will be back to your duties. I am sorry I am this absolute, but I have been far too leniant and I can’t take this anymore.”

And, with that said, his imperative wife detached herself from him and turned to face the other way, before falling asleep.

Or starting to cry.

Who knew.

The only truth that appeared to Aladdin crystal clear was that his solitude persecuted him everywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *madrasa= arabic word for any tipe of educational institution, both secular and religious.  
*Bahamut= it’s a sea monster that belongs to muslim mythology; it is considered the giant being that lies deep below, underpinning the support structure that holds up the earth.

**Author's Note:**

> \- a qirat equals to175,00 meter per square  
\- Al-barid means "outiside the gates" (apparently it is also the name of a bank :P)  
\- Rumiyya al-Kubra is "New Rome", another name of Costantinopolis  
\- Al-Amir means "the Prince"  
\- the harem is the household space dedicated to women  
\- the salat is the daily islamic prayer  
\- a sura is a chapter of the Qu'ran


End file.
